NHL Hitz 20-02 Review

In-Game Play: The action in this game no matter what mode is incredibly fluid and easy to get used to. The things you’ll probably find yourself doing the most often are hitting, slapshots and one-timers. Hitting can be done whenever you please no matter what, and you NEVER have to worry about a penalty being called. It’s a great way to just destroy your opposition and eliminate any chances they ever might have of getting on the scoreboard! Slapshots, while not always easy to pull off, can be very efficient at times. If there’s a lot of traffic infront of the net, firing a slapshot could give you no problem in getting yourself a goal! However, one-timers are definitely what should be used most in this game, because that’s what gets you the most goals. For those of you who might not know what a one-timer is, let me explain.

A one-timer involves two players, a passer and a shooter. To put it simply, the passer passes the puck near the area of the shooter’s stick, and without ever stopping the puck, as its traveling to him, the shooter hits the puck while it’s still in flight for a quick slapshot!

That technique is INCREDIBLY useful to score most if not all your goals, and it becomes very easy to use on a normal basis after you do it for a while!

The coolest part of the in-game play is being able to get “On Fire!” What that means is either after one individual player on your team scores a Hat Trick (3 goals in one game) or your team scores 3 consecutive one-timers while keeping the other team from scoring, that player or your team will become On Fire! When an individual player gets on fire, he has much more powerful slapshots and checking abilities and it’s very difficult to knock him around! When your whole team is on fire, you pretty much have those same exact attributes but just a little more toned down because it’s distributed equally to all three of your players.

Another thing that can and will happen in the actual game are FIGHTS, you just gotta love those! Now the fighting engine in this game isn’t the best, but it’s still very fun most of the time. You basically have two buttons for upper punching and lower punching, and another that will grab your opponent so you can pummel him with a series of punches and other physically painful maneuvers! THIS feature is the ONLY way to have players eliminated from the game. Any player that’s involved in a fight that loses is officially OUT of the game for the entire time. Each team has 9 players at its disposal to substitute if desired between periods, but once a player loses a fight, you cannot use him anymore!

Finally, the most integral part of this game that allows you unlock everything from the fantasy teams and their rinks to even “retro uniforms” is the Hockey Store! After you play every game, win or loss, you are presented with a trivia question that can ranch from 50 to 300 points. They obviously range in difficulty and are asked about pretty much anything encompassing the NHL’s history and the players involved. So the more points you get, the more stuff you can unlock!

Championship Mode: This isn’t exactly something truly special, but it’s still very fun to be involved in once or twice. How this works is you play each NHL team one time until you make it to the final game, which is obviously for the Stanley Cup. So the mode in of itself could almost be considered a “single game elimination tournament.” It’s not really spectacular in terms of the “WOW” factor, but playing through it at least once should happen if you have this game or plan to have it. However even at the end when you win the Cup isn’t all that gratifying because the ceremony lasts maybe 30 seconds?

Skills Mode: Hopefully you’ve figured what this is all about by now. But if NOT, let me explain. There are basically 3 different difficulties for a wide array of different skills that actual NHL players possess that you are put to the test with in this mode. Anything from simple skating to hitting targets with one-timers is encompassed in this mode, and it can actually be quite challenging!

Dynasty Mode: In this mode, you basically create a team from total scratch and take them through a “Dynasty” season that is very similar to the one in championship mode. You choose your teams name from the given list, the actual pictures of the players (I do believe they encompass the people on the development team) as well as tweaking their individual stats. You play each game to gain more points so that you can upgrade your players and even the trivia questions award you with upgrade points if you answer them correctly. This is actually a very fun mode because you can get your dynasty beefed up to the stats of most if not all the “Fantasy Teams” that you can unlock, and having that kind of team to go with up against your friends will leave them shaking!

So overall, the gameplay in this game is just great. There is so much to do, the controls are simple, and they are just a blast to play with!

Aside from the very short, about 30 second long Stanley Cup ceremony that you witness after winning Championship Mode, there really is nothing else that could be considered an end, so there’s really nothing else to talk about.

The replay value in this game is simply excellent. You really could find yourself playing this game many times even after you unlock everything and complete the game 100% The game is JUST that fun and it’s a great multiplayer game to play with your friends! Even if your friends don’t like sports games, they can still have fun with it because that is something that I even found out to be true myself! There is so much you can do in this game, a lot of fun to be had with friends, and just so many occasions where this could help relieve some stress for you!

Many would say the GameCube didn’t have the strongest lineup when it came to their launch titles, and that is definitely true. But nevertheless, with this game being one of the ones among those launch titles and it being as great as it is, this along with some others almost could really make up for the lack of variety at that particular time! This game has incredibly well-done graphics, great music (licensed & unlicensed), amazingly fun gameplay as well as some excellent replay value! All those things combined into one of the first titles available for the GameCube from Midway make this a must play for all GameCube hockey fans, as well as others that don’t really care for the sport! This game is a definite recommendation for purchase!